Amazon puts the Prime badge on brands' own websites

Amazon is letting brands show the Prime badge and Prime delivery on their own websites.

The badge comes with Multi-Channel Fulfillment, or MCF, the Amazon service that ships a brand’s orders from any sales channel out of Amazon’s warehouses. It costs nothing beyond the usual MCF fee, the company said.

Brands keep their own checkout, payments and store policies. Shoppers don’t have to log in to Amazon, because Amazon checks their Prime membership after they pay.

Amazon also cut MCF prices for sellers who already use Fulfillment by Amazon. They get 15% to 25% off for their first six months, with no contract.

Brands that sell on both Amazon and their own site now have a clearer choice about where their website orders ship from:

Moving means one pool of inventory instead of two. Amazon says sellers who use both FBA and MCF run out of stock 19% less often. It also puts more of the business on Amazon’s fee schedule.

Amazon’s main pitch is sales. Skinnies Instant Lifts, an early user, said sales rose nearly 10% after it added the badge. “When our shoppers see Prime delivery on our website, it changes their confidence level, especially first-time buyers,” general manager Gabriella Luksander said.

MCF and a 3PL charge in different ways. MCF charges one fee per order that covers packing and shipping. A 3PL charges for packing, then adds postage on top.

The biggest thing that sets the MCF price is how many items are in the order. For a 1-2 lb item with three-day delivery, Amazon’s rate card charges:

So, MCF is cheapest for brands whose website orders are big baskets. A brand that mostly ships one item at a time pays the top rate, plus a 3.5% fuel surcharge.

Storage works the other way. Amazon charges $0.78 per cubic foot a month for most of the year and $2.40 from October to December. The average 3PL charged $0.46, according to a survey of more than 600 warehouses by The Fulfillment Advisor. A brand holding a lot of slow stock pays more at Amazon, especially at peak.

The same survey found the average 3PL charged $3.20 to pack the first item in an order, before postage. 3PLs have also gotten stricter on contracts. Only 30% offer month-to-month terms, down from 57% a year earlier, while MCF has no contract.

Walmart sells the same thing. Its Multichannel Solutions service ships a brand’s orders from its own site, Amazon or TikTok out of Walmart’s warehouses, in plain boxes. Walmart lists $7.75 to ship a pair of earrings, close to Amazon’s $7.34 for an item that light.

Shopify stays out of warehousing. It bought Deliverr for $2.1 billion, then sold its logistics business to Flexport the next year. Shopify merchants can now plug in Amazon MCF through an app, or ship with Flexport.

Independent 3PLs such as Stord pitch brand control instead. “Amazon makes you feel like a SKU. Stord makes us feel like a brand,” Imran Jawaid of doingwell, a Stord customer, said when Stord raised $250 million this spring.

The offer comes with catches:

Some brands also question whether their own site needs Amazon’s speed. NatPat sees shoppers find it on Amazon, then come to its own site to buy multi-packs. “We don’t see expectation of the same speed as Amazon,” co-founder and CEO Michael Jankie told us during a Conveyor webinar.

The discount’s first peak season starts in mid-October, when the $0.32 peak fee and the $2.40 storage rate kick in.

In the spring, the first six-month discounts run out. Brands that keep their website orders on MCF after that will be paying the full rate.